Judith Potts was an actress and is now a voice, acting and presentation coach. She is married with two children, three stepchildren and is the proud grandmother to two grandsons. She lives in west London and Yorkshire. In 2008 she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She can be contacted at judith.potts@telegraph.co.uk and is on Twitter @JudithPotts.

The charity that works tirelessly in the cause of NHS research

While the politicians continue to argue the whys and wherefores of the proposed welfare reforms – with either help or hindrance from Mike Hobday of Macmillan Cancer Support, depending on your political persuasion (but I am not sure his intervention has done anything positive for Macmillan) – one charity has been working tenaciously to ensure that NHS research will not be omitted from the Bill.

Breast Cancer Campaign has been lobbying the government and, with the help of its supporters, has achieved its objective without generating unhelpful headlines from exchanges on the floor of the House. The charity has ensured that, added to the Government's Health Bill, there will be a new duty on the Health Secretary and clinical commissioning groups to promote research.

We hope this research will be aimed at older women, in particular, who – as we have all heard this week – are losing out on their chance of having surgery to remove breast tumours. Following a similar report from the King's Fund, The National Cancer Intelligence Network (funded by the Government and various cancer charities to collate UK statistics on diagnosis, treatment and outcomes of all types of cancer) has produced evidence that older women – no matter if perfectly healthy but even taking into account other illnesses – were less likely to be offered surgery. The figures state that 90% of 30-50 year olds falling to a mere 50% of over 80's – from the records of 23,000 women – had operations for breast cancer.

Now, it may be that some older people refuse invasive treatment but, even so, this evidence supports the experiences of families – and I have written about this before – who have seen their elderly relatives ignored and treated with disdain. Are we surprised at these findings? I don't think so. It is another example of the medical profession's attitude to care of the elderly. Much as the lobbyists for the elderly try to make their voices heard, they are competing with advocates for the young – a much easier cause to sell.

Worse still, not only does our survival rate lag behind other countries, but we now hear that cancer patients from deprived areas are less likely to survive than those from more affluent areas. Late diagnosis – through patients being unaware of the symptoms of cancer and of GPs not double-checking when seeing a patient for whatever reason – and lifestyle issues are, perhaps, to blame. Early diagnosis of cancer gives the patient a much better chance of a positive outcome.

However, once diagnosed, I wonder how many people are affected by the slowness of the NHS to arrange for treatment? Weeks go by and – if the cancer was detected late – there must be a real chance that the disease will progress to the next stage before treatment begins, making surgery impossible and treatment much more aggressive.

Of course everybody should receive the same cancer care and treatment but do we think there is enough information available in surgeries about signs and symptoms which need to be discussed with the GP? Is there enough encouragement for people to make sure they attend medical screening – like mammograms? Incidentally, once a woman reaches 73 (in 2012) she no longer qualifies for an annual mammogram. What about the GP's role in advising on life-style choices – smoking is top of their list at the moment, but what about obesity?

There is little enough on display in my surgery about any illness – never mind support services. I have yet to discover what happened to the pile of leaflets and the poster about the Breast Cancer Haven I left there months ago. They are nowhere to be seen.